"We see in six dimensions - don't tell anyone"
June 1, 2008 12:44 PM Subscribe
At the risk of sounding extremely offensive, what does it feel like to be really fat?
Wow, I sound like a condescending jerk, huh? I'll risk it, because I'm genuinely curious what it's like to be extremely obese.
If it makes sense, I'm less curious about the factual (that airline seats are too small) than I am about the experiential (what goes through someone's mind when they realize an airline seat is going to be too small on a flight with no open seats). I'm wondering not only about the psychological aspects, though, but basic physical feelings as well.
Or is this one of those things, like pregnancy (my wife tells me), that you can't know without experiencing?
Wow, I sound like a condescending jerk, huh? I'll risk it, because I'm genuinely curious what it's like to be extremely obese.
If it makes sense, I'm less curious about the factual (that airline seats are too small) than I am about the experiential (what goes through someone's mind when they realize an airline seat is going to be too small on a flight with no open seats). I'm wondering not only about the psychological aspects, though, but basic physical feelings as well.
Or is this one of those things, like pregnancy (my wife tells me), that you can't know without experiencing?
This post was deleted for the following reason: we've pretty much done exactly this question before -- jessamyn
How fat do you want to know about? I'm six four, over 300lbs, BMI of 36 but my 42" jeans are currently loose on me.
As a general rule, on a day to day basis my weight doesn't bother me. I'm overweight and always have been. The first time I realised I had a major problem was two or three years back when I saw in my doctor's notes that as a 9 year old I'd been described as "morbidly obese". That hurt, because no-one ever told me.
Shopping is horrendous. In the UK women get stores like Evans where they can buy (supposedly) fashionable clothes in big sizes, but men get nothing. I couldn't find jeans bigger than size 42, or shirts bigger than XL in most places. I travelled 30 miles to find bigger shirts, and often came away depressed because they only had "fat man shirts".
Exercise is depressing. I've lost a stone and a half in the last few weeks, and the difference is incredible. I'm now walking a couple of miles a day when I used to resent walking a few hundred yards. I never got to thge stage where stairs made me breathless, but my joints clicked and my back hurt from my weight.
My office bought new furnititure a while back and I fought hard really hard to get us decent chairs. I think everyone else thought that I was being a champion for our comfort, but in reality I knew that they were the only chairs that the supplier sold which would carry my weight. Sitting in a chair and having it creak or having the gas lift sag under your weight is a mortifying feeling. Even when it isn't your fault, you know it's your fault. When a badly designed wooden garden chair colapsed underneath me, I could see why it would fail for anyone, yet I also knew it had failed because I was so fat. No other reason.
Aeroplanes are torturous places. The normal seats are only just about wide enough for you to sit in, and the belt is tight around your belly. You don't want to take the belt off because you know it will be hard to do up again, but asking for an extension isn't an option. To make it worse, I'm so tall that I get a medical seat near a door - where the trays and tvs are mounted in the armrest, making the seats even narrower.
I know fat people who refuse to eat in public because they feel like they're being stared at, and I personally want to kill anyone who makes jokes when I order a diet coke.
When you get to a certain size, each pound that you gain is nothing. I imagine for skinny people that putting on a pound shows. I can look in the mirror and not see the 21 pounds I've lost. My weight goes up and down by 3 pounds in a week depending on if I've had a chance to walk during the week. It's the clothes that you judge your size by. The strained buttons or the belt with three round holes and a long eliptical one.
You either spend your time pretending you weigh nothing, or you end up obsessing about it. I spent months trying to find an exercise bike to buy that would carry more than 200lbs. They're as rare as hens' teeth. When I bought a real wheeled bike, no-one in any of the stores had any idea what the bikes were rated to. So you obsess over if you have to lose weight before you can lose weight.
It's that terror of breaking things that has the biggest impact on my life. Spend a day wandering around imagining everything was half as strong as it really is. Think about the stairs creaking, the chair under you making ominous noises, and not wanting to lean on a colleague's desk because it bows...
My god that was a long waffly stream of text that didn't answer your questions.
Mmmm... waffles....
posted by twine42 at 1:20 PM on June 1, 2008
As a general rule, on a day to day basis my weight doesn't bother me. I'm overweight and always have been. The first time I realised I had a major problem was two or three years back when I saw in my doctor's notes that as a 9 year old I'd been described as "morbidly obese". That hurt, because no-one ever told me.
Shopping is horrendous. In the UK women get stores like Evans where they can buy (supposedly) fashionable clothes in big sizes, but men get nothing. I couldn't find jeans bigger than size 42, or shirts bigger than XL in most places. I travelled 30 miles to find bigger shirts, and often came away depressed because they only had "fat man shirts".
Exercise is depressing. I've lost a stone and a half in the last few weeks, and the difference is incredible. I'm now walking a couple of miles a day when I used to resent walking a few hundred yards. I never got to thge stage where stairs made me breathless, but my joints clicked and my back hurt from my weight.
My office bought new furnititure a while back and I fought hard really hard to get us decent chairs. I think everyone else thought that I was being a champion for our comfort, but in reality I knew that they were the only chairs that the supplier sold which would carry my weight. Sitting in a chair and having it creak or having the gas lift sag under your weight is a mortifying feeling. Even when it isn't your fault, you know it's your fault. When a badly designed wooden garden chair colapsed underneath me, I could see why it would fail for anyone, yet I also knew it had failed because I was so fat. No other reason.
Aeroplanes are torturous places. The normal seats are only just about wide enough for you to sit in, and the belt is tight around your belly. You don't want to take the belt off because you know it will be hard to do up again, but asking for an extension isn't an option. To make it worse, I'm so tall that I get a medical seat near a door - where the trays and tvs are mounted in the armrest, making the seats even narrower.
I know fat people who refuse to eat in public because they feel like they're being stared at, and I personally want to kill anyone who makes jokes when I order a diet coke.
When you get to a certain size, each pound that you gain is nothing. I imagine for skinny people that putting on a pound shows. I can look in the mirror and not see the 21 pounds I've lost. My weight goes up and down by 3 pounds in a week depending on if I've had a chance to walk during the week. It's the clothes that you judge your size by. The strained buttons or the belt with three round holes and a long eliptical one.
You either spend your time pretending you weigh nothing, or you end up obsessing about it. I spent months trying to find an exercise bike to buy that would carry more than 200lbs. They're as rare as hens' teeth. When I bought a real wheeled bike, no-one in any of the stores had any idea what the bikes were rated to. So you obsess over if you have to lose weight before you can lose weight.
It's that terror of breaking things that has the biggest impact on my life. Spend a day wandering around imagining everything was half as strong as it really is. Think about the stairs creaking, the chair under you making ominous noises, and not wanting to lean on a colleague's desk because it bows...
My god that was a long waffly stream of text that didn't answer your questions.
Mmmm... waffles....
posted by twine42 at 1:20 PM on June 1, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Bookhouse at 12:58 PM on June 1, 2008